1966?- Comedian Diverging from the hard-edged raunchy and streetwise observational styles of other contemporary African-American comedians, Arnez J offers comic routines reminiscent of an earlier era of comedy. His improvisational comic style is primarily physical, with a strong reliance on impressions and exaggerations of familiar personalities. "J is a whirling dervish on stage—he …
1937- Politician Augustine, Jean, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission In 1993 Jean Augustine made Canadian political history as the first black woman ever elected to the nation's House of Commons. Nine years later, Augustine achieved yet another historic advance when she became the first woman of African heritage to serve as a cabinet minister in Canada. "Being…
1963- Professional soccer player, soccer analyst Barnes, John, photograph. © Rune Hellestad/Corbis. During his stellar career as a professional soccer, or football, player in England, John Barnes played for England 79 times, scoring 12 goals. He was a member of the Liverpool team that won the league title in 1988 and 1990, the Football Association (FA) Cup in 1989 and 1992, and the League C…
1984- Vocalist Barrino, Fantasia, photograph. Evan Agostini/Getty Images The third-season winner of television's American Idol singing competition in 2004, Fantasia Barrino, stood out from tough competition for two reasons. Above all, she was a vocal powerhouse, a singer with the kind of raw vocal talent the program's voting audience hadn't encountered before. And she made a s…
1944- Art historian, educator Benjamin, Dr. Tritobia Hayes, photograph. Photo by Jarvis Grant. A distinguished art historian and champion of black artists, Tritobia Hayes Benjamin has been a member of the Art Department at Howard University since 1970. She was made full professor of art history in 1993 and is associate dean of the Division of Fine Arts and director of the Howard University Gallery…
1973-2005 Actor, rapper Bentley, Lamont, photograph. UPN/Landov. Known for his charisma and talent, actor Lamont Bentley stole the hearts of television and movie viewers from the time he was a teen. Debuting on a 1986 Starburst commercial, the young actor went on to play bit parts in several television series and movies. His first recurring role came in 1994 on the short-lived, but critically accl…
1970- Disc jockey Beverly Bond was born to DJ. Though her looks propelled her down fashion runways, it was music that set her heart flying. "Eventually the music chose me and I had to become a DJ," Bond told Contemporary Black Biography (CBB). Since setting up her turntables in 2000, Bond has captivated jet-setters, style-breakers, and baggy-panted beat makers with her ingenious mixe…
1926-2005 Entertainer Brown, Oscar, Jr., photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. Oscar Brown Jr. was not a man easily defined. Labels like songwriter, composer, actor, singer, director, producer, playwright all fit, but not quite. He was also an activist, a visionary, and a social commentator. As influenced by the Harlem Renaissance as he was by the Civil Rights Movement, Brown…
1965- Gospel singer, praise leader Cage, Byron, photograph. © Laura Farr/Zuma/Corbis. Known as the "Prince of Praise," celebrated gospel singer Byron Cage has been performing and recording songs since the 1980s and has become known for a self-described "cross-cultural, mass-appeal praise and worship" style that has kept his albums in the Billboard Gospel Top Ten …
1970- Singer, actor Mariah Carey has displayed each of the characteristics that commonly describe a diva. She possesses both a five-octave vocal range and award-winning music business skills. She co-wrote all but one of her No.1 songs (which was a cover of a Jackson 5 song) and co-produced of all of her chart-topping hits. She was named the world's top selling female artist of the millenniu…
1959(?)- Basketball coach, motivational speaker, entrepreneur Coach Ken Carter's 1999 lockout of his Richmond (California) High School basketball team seemed like a story made for the movies. And indeed, when the story was brought to life by actor Samuel L. Jackson in the 2005 hit film Coach Carter, a fresh new round of publicity came to the man whose daring form of discipline had set a gro…
1944- Politician Christie, Perry, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. Perry Gladstone Christie became prime minister of the Bahamas in May of 2002 after a long career in his Caribbean island-nation's main legislative body, the National Assembly. Christie heads the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) of the Bahamas, which dominated the political landscape even before the …
1948-2005 Singer As the most commercially successful member of James Brown's Revue, Lyn Collins became a funk diva well before either word had much meaning. Her song "Think (About It)" topped the charts in 1972 and inspired a generation of sample-happy hip-hoppers in the 1990s. Yet, despite her talent and success, her name has barely registered on the country's musical …
1958- Athlete Crooks, Garth, photograph. Ben Radford/Getty Images. Garth Crooks made English soccer history as the first black player to score a goal in a championship final in England's FA (Football Association) Cup, the oldest organized soccer competition in the world. Crooks' kick that day in 1981 came at a time when black players among the teams of England's most popular s…
David, Craig, photograph. Jens Kalaene/DPA/Landov. 1981- Musician British rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer Craig David rocketed to success at age 19 with his very first album, Born to Do It. His unique blend of soulful lyrics, subtle melodies, and infectious beats have earned him critical admiration and popular fame, prompting Sir Elton John to proclaim him the best singer in England. The son of …
Deezer D, photograph. Amanda Edwards/Getty Images. 1965- Actor, musician Best known for his role as nurse Malik McGrath on the popular television show ER, Deezer D transformed himself almost overnight from a gang member and alcoholic to a dedicated, clean-living Christian. His conversion included a movement towards the Christian rap music industry that culminated in an album with a strong message …
1906-1989 Writer At the time of his death in 1989, Birago Diop was one of Senegal's most prominent writers, and had been since he first rose to fame in the 1950s. Though he wrote in the French language, Diop's works drew upon the folktales of his West African nation's indigenous Wolof culture. An obituary in the Times of London praised his "deceptively simple stories&#x…
Douglas, Dr. Denzil, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. 1953- Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis With his election to Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis on July 3, 1995, Dr. Denzil Llewellyn Douglas, leader of the country's Labour Party (SKNLP), ended a twelve-year period in which the People's Action Movement (PAM) dominated the country's assembl…
1964- Actor In 1997 Essence magazine asserted Vivica A. Fox was "the Hollywood homegirl of the moment." Nearly a decade later, Fox had parlayed her screen appeal into a successful acting career with more than a dozen films and nearly as many television appearances to her name. In the early 2000s, Fox had her sights set on a long, powerful career in Hollywood, and had begun to develop…
Gil, Gilberto, photograph. Evan Agostini/Getty Images. 1942- Musician Brazilian legend Gilberto Gil is sometimes described as his country's version of Sting or Bono. Like the British musical stars who have become active in environmental and social-reform causes, Gil has long been a crusader for protection of the Brazilian environment and for help for those who live in the overcrowded urban …
1946- Business Executive, NAACP Executive Bruce S. Gordon's appointment in 2005 as president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the oldest civil rights organization in the United States, caught many by surprise. Though Gordon had long been involved in civil rights issues, including the Urban League and the United Negro College Fund, he had bui…
1960- Television and radio news personality Ed Gordon emerged in the late 1990s as one of the hottest news personalities in the highly competitive business. For many years, Gordon was a leading news anchor for the Black Entertainment Television (BET) network. During his early years with BET, Gordon made his name as a jack-of-all-trades: he could be seen reporting the news, undertaking investigativ…
1942- Poet, author A well-respected though perhaps under-recognized poet, David Henderson was a founder of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s. He has been an active member of New York's Lower East Side art community for more than four decades. Henderson has published four volumes of poetry, and his work has appeared in numerous literary publications and anthologies. A revised and expanded…
1975- Singer, songwriter, producer The adoration and respect accorded Lauryn Hill seems unparalleled. "The most versatile vocalist of her generation," wrote Kevin Powell in Horizon magazine. "Beautiful, multitalented, whipsmart," wrote Harper's Bazaar. "Catalyst…shining star…a divine singing voice and an up-front rhyme flow that ranks her amo…
Hilliard, Wendy, photograph. Tony Duffy/Getty Images. 196?- Gymnast and founder, Wendy Hilliard Foundation The first African-American rhythmic gymnast to represent the sport on a U.S. national team, Wendy Hilliard has won several medals in international competition. She has also gone on to promote the sport among inner-city children. The Wendy Hilliard Foundation, which she formed in 1995, provide…
1958- Singer, songwriter, dancer A powerfully creative and disciplined artist, Michael Jackson is a distinctive vocalist, an imaginative and original songwriter with a gift for turning his own experiences into powerful lyrics, and a dancer almost without peer. Keeping control over his own career, he ruled pop and rhythm-and-blues music charts throughout the 1980s. Jackson's private life has…
Jones, Wayne, photograph. Courtesy of Wayne Jones. 1952- Engineer National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) 2004 Golden Torch for Lifetime Achievement in Government recipient Wayne Jones attended college during a period of enormous growth and development in the computer sciences. Deeply interested and excited by the possibilities of this new technology, he specialized in computer systems engineer…
1935-2005 Artist The 20th-century artistic style known as abstract expressionism, with its emphasis on patterns, geometrical shapes, and works that focus on the process of making art, has grown into a generally accepted part of the American cultural vocabulary. But when Alvin Loving began his career, abstract art was not practiced by many black artists. At the time Loving began working in the 1960…
1943- Singer, actress In a career spanning forty years, Marilyn McCoo has become one of the most successful female recording artists in American music. With super group The 5th Dimension, her husband Billy Davis Jr., and as a soloist, McCoo has earned seven gold albums, five gold singles, six Grammy awards, and a star on the Holly-wood Walk of Fame. Her own fame was cemented as a singer when she h…
1951- Novelist, educator "Terry McMillan has the power to be an important contemporary novelist," stated Valerie Sayers reviewing Disappearing Acts in the New York Times Book Review in 1989. "Watch Terry McMillan. She's going to be a major writer," predicted a short but positive review of the same novel in Cosmopolitan. McMillan had already garnered attention and…
1943- Nuclear engineer, educator, and consultant Growing up when the United States was still a racially segregated society, Warren F. Miller, Jr., learned a lot about the difficulties encountered when a member of a minority breaks barriers by entering a field traditionally dominated by whites. He broke many of those barriers himself, first by becoming one of a very small number of African American…
1959- Singer, composer, drummer Youssou N'Dour is an international star in the field of popular music that has come to be known as "Afropop" or "world beat." He is a singer, composer, and drummer whose style has been given the name "mbalax." N'Dour's own particular brand of mbalax has become so popular and widespread that he is often c…
1962- Television broadcaster Though her last name is revered in musical circles, Arthel Neville was on her own when she decided to pursue a career in television. "Believe me, the name Neville didn't do anything for me in the field of journalism," she told New Orleans Magazine. Nonetheless, Neville has gone from a station intern for a local Texas channel to a nationally famous …
1973- Professional football player Owens, Terrell, photograph. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images. Known as one of the National Football League's top wide receivers, Terrell Owens has made his mark in football history, not just for his talent as an athlete, but for his controversial behavior both on and off the field that gained him the label of football's most misunderstood star. Born …
1894-1986 Professional football player, coach, businessman Pollard, Fritz, photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. A highly successful football and track athlete, Fritz Pollard became the first African American to play in the Rose Bowl when he played for Brown University in 1916 and the first African American to coach in the National Football League (NFL) in 1922. During the ea…
1930- Cuban vocalist Portuondo, Omara, photograph. Staton R. Winter/Getty Images. The elegant vocalist Omara Portuondo, nearly 70 years old at the time, was the only female artist showcased in the successful Buena Vista Social Club album and film that reintroduced classic Cuban music to American audiences in the late 1990s. It wasn't only because she was a woman that Portuondo stood out, ho…
1954- Major league baseball manager, player Randolph, Willie, photograph. Peter Kramer/Getty Images. A star second baseman with the powerhouse New York Yankees baseball teams of the 1970s and 1980s, Willie Randolph became New York's first African-American pro baseball manager when he was named to that post by the New York Mets in 2004. Randolph rose to prominence as a player and manager the…
1972- Ragtime composer, pianist Robinson, Reginald R., photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. Reginald Robinson makes new piano music in a genre that flourished a hundred years ago. Ragtime, the music that brought African-American syncopated rhythms to a broad American public in the early years of the twentieth century, marked an important stage of American musical history. Ye…
1970- Chef Samuelsson, Marcus, photograph. Adam Rountree/Bloomberg News/Landov. Celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson and the New York City restaurant he co-owns, Aquavit, have each done their share to make Swedish cuisine one of the hot new culinary trends of the early twenty-first century. Born in Ethiopia but raised in Sweden, Samuelsson took over the executive chef's post at the Manhattan la…
1968- Professional football player Barry Sanders was one of the greatest football players of the 1990s and perhaps of all time. Although he always described himself as an "average person," Barry Sanders' accomplishments playing football are truly extraordinary. In his three years at Oklahoma State University, Sanders broke or tied 24 NCAA records on his way to winning college …
1917-2004 Actress Sanford, Isabel, photograph. EPA/Landov. Best known for her portrayal of Louise Jefferson—Weezy—on the hit television situation comedy The Jeffersons, Isabel Sanford became the first black woman to win an Emmy award for best actress in a comedy series. Sanford's acting career included stage and film, as well as television stardom. In her early life as a young…
1964- Sociology professor Sears, Stephanie, photograph. Photo by Anthony R. Baker. Courtesy of Stephanie Sears. Dr. Stephanie Sears, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco, received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 2004 for her research and study of sociology and African-American studies. Seeking to better the lives of youth through her work, Sears' research expl…
1934- Electrical engineer, physicist Dr. John Slaughter's career has in many ways traveled a wide circle, leading him from the radio repair shop that helped pay his college tuition, to high-tech electrical engineering jobs, and then back to school as the president of two nationally respected colleges. His most recent job, the presidency of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engin…
19??- Animator Smith, Bruce W., photograph. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. Considered one of the leading talents among a new generation of animators, Bruce W. Smith has broadened the array of multicultural cartoon characters seen on television and in films. Through his Jambalaya Studio, he has created programs for children and families that focus on authentic depictions of life am…
1968- Actor, rap artist, film and television producer On television he was the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, a streetwise Philadelphian sent to live with wealthy relatives in California. In real life he is Will Smith, a streetwise Philadelphian who has-by virtue of hard work and infectious charm-found stardom and wealth in Los Angeles. Smith has enjoyed vast success in two different fields of popular e…
1953- Family court judge Sparks, Corrine E., photograph. Courtesy of Judge Corrine E. Sparks. In 1987 Judge Corrine Sparks secured her spot in history by becoming the first African Nova Scotian to receive appointment to the judiciary and the first African Canadian female to serve on the bench. Sparks adjudicates family court cases relating to custody, child and spousal support, access, and child p…
1963- Journalist Syler, Rene, photograph. CBS/Landov. In 2002 René Syler became the first African-American woman to host a network morning news program as coanchor for The Early Show on CBS. Syler deftly handled news stories and conducted interviews with both celebrities and political heavy-weights, and she won a top journalism honor for her 2003 series on breast-cancer awareness after her …
1939- Attorney, filmmaker, and diplomat Robert F. Van Lierop's varied and distinguished career has included spells as assistant legal counsel to the NAACP in the late 1960s, as ambassador to the United Nations for the Republic of Vanuatu, as a photojournalist and film producer, and as a founding partner in the law firm of Van Lierop, Burns, and Bassett. At the United Nations during the 1980…
Actress 1978- For nine years, first on Moesha and then on The Parkers, actress Countess Vaughn was a fixture of African-American living rooms, a star on the television programs that topped measures of black viewership. The youthful Vaughn mastered a broad, sassy style of comedy with deep roots in African-American performance traditions, portraying the boy-chasing Kim Parker and developing a set of…
1946- Social activist Walker, Bernita R., photograph. Courtesy Bernita R. Walker. For more than two decades, Bernita R. Walker has dedicated her life to the support of families escaping domestic violence. She is co-founder and executive director of Project: Peacemakers, Inc., a non-profit public benefit corporation in Los Angeles that provides intervention and education for those escaping domestic…
1946- Bass-baritone opera singer, actor Widely considered one of the greatest singers of his generation, Jamaican-born bass-baritone Willard White made his professional operatic debut with New York City Opera, where he played the character of Colline in La Bohème in 1974. His European debut was with Welsh National Opera in Cardiff, Wales, where he played Osmin in Mozart's The Abducti…
1956- Filmmaker Marco Williams's documentaries offer an unflinchingly look in the face of hard issues like racism, injustice, and the black American experience. In filming personal issues such as the search for his father or the repercussions of a black man's murder at the hands of white racists, Williams has created a body of work that rises above its subjects. "The personal …
1950- Singer, songwriter In the course of following Stevie Wonder on his relentless travels, journalists come to realize just how beloved an entertainer he is. "It dawned on me," wrote Giles Smith in the New Yorker, "that a substantial part of Stevie Wonder's public life consists of the voices of complete strangers telling him they love him." Rolling Stone'…
1977- Athlete, activist Saddled with a useless right leg, abandoned by his father, orphaned by his mother's death, and living in a country where physical deformities have traditionally been considered a curse, Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah faced odds that would intimidate any Westerner. The best a disabled Ghanaian could hope for in a country with an annual income of less than $500 was to eek out a…